Dubai Cares
Partnering to break the cycle of poverty
Dubai Cares is currently partnering with WSUP in Madagascar and Bangladesh.
In Madagascar, Dubai Cares is supporting WSUP to implement a 3-year project in Madagascar which aims to improve access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities in schools in two of Madagascar’s largest cities: Antananarivo and Mahajanga, to benefit 14,250 children and 33,750 community members.
The project aims to construct and rehabilitate WASH facilities in school and health centres to ensure availability of services in 30 schools, including 21 primary and nine secondary schools. In addition, the programme will provide, in collaboration with the mandated health authorities, hygiene education in schools, communities and health centres, to contribute to sustainable behavioural change. The programme will also support the schools to go through the various stages required to be officially certified by the Ministry of Education as a ‘WASH friendly school’. To achieve long-term systemic change, the project aims to provide capacity building to local institutions, and to influence policy at the local and national government levels.
Blog: March 2018 – Dubai Cares launches a new programme in Madagascar to improve children’s health
Blog: May 2018 – Empowering adolescent girls through user-centred design
In 2019, Dubai Cares extended support to WSUP through support of a project in Bangladesh which will improve WASH facilities in Bangladeshi schools in the target areas of Rangpur, Chattogram and Gazipur.
Our new programme [with WSUP] will be implemented in Antananarivo and Mahajanga, where the consequences of poor WASH infrastructure have been devastating for families. Diarrhoea as well as cholera diseases are the leading causes of death of children under five, and adequate access to WASH facilities can prevent a significant proportion of such diseases. The long-lasting benefits of our latest WASH programme will not only provide much-needed WASH facilities across schools, but will also educate communities on how they can enhance their standards of hygiene to prevent illnesses.